Danse Macabre
by Ace of Gallifrey
Summary: I know exactly where the plot of this story is going. Trouble is, I can't make myself write it, and I can't post substandard work. I have much better, more original ideas for E/M stories. Therefore, this is TEMPORARILY ON HOLD until my muse comes back.
1. Chapter One

**Title-** Danse Macabre  
**Characters/Pairings-** Meg/Erik, Christine/Raoul, appearances by the usual suspects and one spirit of an insane prima ballerina  
**Rating-** T for the violence  
**Summary-** Picks up where the 2004 movie left off. Christine and Raoul have their happy ending, the opera house is in ruins, and Erik is shattered. But something new, and something far more dangerous than Erik, is stirring in the depths of the Opera Populaire, and this time, it's not the prima donna who's the target: it's her little shadow. Can Meg find the strength to survive the looming disaster, and maybe find love along the way?

**A/N-** Yes, I'm aware that Meg's thoughts here kind of portray Christine as a loony here, but let's be honest, we all know she was screwed up. And don't we all have friends that we have to be strong for and take care of because they can't do it for themselves? Or is that just me…?

_

* * *

There are some things that shouldn't be forgotten, you see, but they are nevertheless. This tale is one of them. It is true what they say, that those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it._

_You see, a terribly long time ago, a girl named Adéle came to the Opera Populaire. She was very young when she came to live in the ballet dormitories, and an orphan. She was talented, even at a very early age. In fact, she was very talented. _

_From the moment she laced her first pair of ballet shoes, it was as though she had been made to dance. Grégoire Benoit, then the director of the Populaire's ballet company, encouraged her talent, and in his personal records, it has been noted that he described her as having been sculpted by God to be a prima ballerina._

* * *

Meg waded up from the water, trying not to visibly shiver as the cool air struck her legs, which were damp to the waist from the icy lake. She looked around this ether-world of night, trying hard not to be misled by the warm flicker of candles and the velvet and lace draperies. To her, it looked like paradise, but Meg was determined to remember that to Christine, this was a prison. She wasn't here to get lost in a daydream. She was here to rescue her friend, if she could.

She remembered the idle fantasies of her childhood, the days when she would study the stories of her favorite ballets and dream, not just of dancing the roles but also of living them out. Clara defeating the Mouse-King. Giselle, who defended her lover even from beyond the grave. Odette, sacrificing her own life to break the power of an evil sorcerer. These were the stories she grew up with, her secret idols on the days when her toes were covered in blisters and her ears were ringing with the snide whispers that such a curvy figure did not a ballerina make. Well then, now was her hour. Time for Meg Giry to show her worth and her courage, temptations be damned.

The trouble was, the cavern seemed devoid of life. The snarling cries of her fellow hunters echoed against stone, but there was no sound besides.

Meg let out a little sigh. She should have better remembered the words she herself spoke to Christine so many months before: _stories like this can't come true_. No chance of valor here, only pickings for souvenir-hunters desperate for a piece of the Phantom.

On the rock, Meg found the mask, the very one she had caught glimpses of in the darkness above the stage when everyone else was looking outwards and she alone thought to glance up. She picked it up, feeling the cool sculpted porcelain against her fingertips. She almost set it down again, but hesitated. This was the Phantom's defense, she thought, something personal and a little bit sacred. Something in her said _no_; she couldn't abandon this to be picked up by a scavenger.

Meg wandered in the opposite direction of the mob (and it _was_ a mob, she suddenly realized: not an intrepid band of rescuers, but a rabid coven of witch-hunters). As the others abandoned the obviously empty Phantom's lair, she couldn't help but think that if there were any clue to where her friend had been taken, it would be here.

Alright then, searching for clues. That task drove all thought of the disaster occurring above her head from Meg's mind. She _had_ to find Christine. She owed her that much. In a way, Meg really felt like this was her fault. Ever since Christine had come to the Opera Populaire, when Christine was seven and she was eight, she had tried to do as her mother said and become the stabilizing influence in her friend's life. When Christine had first started to get that haunted, faraway look in her eyes, like a startled fawn, Meg had done her best to ground her. She _was_ her sister's keeper.

After Christine and Raoul had become involved, Meg had stepped back a little, expecting the Vicomte to look after her. Raoul, however, didn't seem to have the talent for managing Christine's fantasies the way she did, and before either of them knew what was happening, she had slipped away under the influence of the Opera Ghost's spell. If Meg hadn't been so determined to give the young lovers the space they needed to conduct their affairs, she was sure she must have recognized the signs. She should have been able to talk sense into Christine before the terror and… fascination? Was that it? Alright, before the _fascination_ the Phantom inspired had taken hold completely.

It was too late for 'what ifs' though, and all Meg could do was atone for her mistakes. She turned on the spot, giving the cavern a glance-over, looking for anything that would seem out of place.

The only thing that really caught her eyes was the row of mirrors along the wall. Every one of them was shattered, and a few of them were smashed so badly they had fallen wholly from their frames, leaving a spill of silvered glass across the stone below. Meg approached the mirrors and gently touched the spiderweb of cracks shooting through the surface of one of them. Broken mirrors...

She sighed. Everything about this place spoke of sadness and loneliness and cold. Who would live in a place like this? Well, a phantom, she supposed, but she knew that this Phantom was no such thing. She had seen him, more than once, and long before anyone else. People spoke of the New Years' masquerade in hushed tones, whispering about the figure in scarlet who menaced the crowd and disappeared in a puff of smoke, and of the voice that had poured down from the dome the night they had performed _il Muto_. Meg chose, instead, to think of the times when she would see a flash of a shadow out of the corner of her eye, or catch sight of that mask almost glowing in the dark in the flies.

She had grown up with him. All her life, he had been there, lurking in the shadows, playing little pranks, and she had been amused. The other girls had been terrified (mostly, she suspected, due to the fear-mongering of the late, detestable Josef Buquet), but Meg had never had it in her to be afraid of the enigmatic O.G. She supposed it had something to do with being her mother's daughter. Perhaps she had inherited Antoinette Giry's talent for being absolutely unflappable. Or perhaps it was just that until recently, the Phantom's antics had been mostly harmless.

The brush of wind across her cheek suddenly registered, cutting through her musings. She had been feeling it for some time- from the minute she first stood in front of the line of broken mirrors, in fact- but only now did she realize what it meant. Breezes had to come from somewhere, after all. The only question was… where? If it were a draft created by the burning opera house above, it would have been warm. A cold breeze meant air from the outside.

The tassels on the velvet curtain just beside her were swaying, ever so slightly. Meg let a bitter smirk twist at her lips. "Found you," she murmured.

Hesitantly, she pushed the curtain aside, and found that she was right. Behind the drape, there was a passage, pitch-black and full of the noise of dripping water. Apprehension suddenly filled her. She was helpless in the dark. Meg wished very fervently that she had thought to take one of the swords from the prop store before stampeding down here on her fool's quest to rescue Christine. A blunt blade of cheap metal was a better defense than nothing at all.

A candle would have to suffice, she supposed. She lifted one of the ornate candelabras from its sconce on the wall and thrust it out before her. Then, swallowing heavily against the roll of fear in her gut, Meg stepped forward into the dark.


	2. Chapter Two

**A/N-** Early update, woo-hoo! Future ones will probably be slower, because I had this mostly completed when I posted Ch. 1, but once I was finished with my tweeking, I couldn't resist updating!

Anyway, for almost all of my stories on the Doctor Who side of things, I write from one point of view within a scene- or if the POV _absolutely must_ change, I include a page break. But for some reason, that just doesn't seem to work for POTO fic (maybe because POVs change within scenes so much in the film?). Therefore, if the POV changes unexpectedly, try not to be completely thrown by it, m'kay?

* * *

_When Adéle was old enough to put her training to use and join the Opera Populaire's ballet troupe on-stage, she began gaining the attention of critics for her exceptional skill. It has been said on several occasions that Monsieur Benoit may have had a hand in the attention paid to her. More than one critic alluded to an unnamed personage who provided them with a sizable fee to give the young ballerina a positive mention in their review. __This favoritism on the part of the critics of the day almost undoubtedly stemmed from the ballet master's affection for his protégé and his determination to advance her career. It is particularly considerable because in those days, the ballet was of considerably less import than it has gained today, and it was rare for a reviewer to comment on the dance, let alone take the time to single out a single ballerina, regardless of excellence._

* * *

It seemed she had been walking for hours, but really, Meg knew it had only been a few minutes since she had left the Phantom's grotto behind. The unchanging nature of the corridor made it seem like longer. The passage was freezing, and the walls were damp. She shivered, and she wasn't sure if it was from the lurching pit of nerves in her stomach, or the temperature. She brandished the little light she had brought ahead of her.

Suddenly, the little sphere of the candle's glow revealed an unexpected twist in the passage, and Meg proceeded around it with no little trepidation. There was nothing immediately visible, but now Meg could hear something that the sound of water had masked before- a soft whuffling sound, like a wounded animal

A few more steps, and her candle found the source of the noise, a figure lying curled against the damp wall and shaking visibly. The figure, obviously male, was far too large to be Raoul, which meant only one thing: Meg had found the Phantom. And he was, of all things, _crying_.

For a moment, Meg was locked in place, staring. She had never seen a grown man cry before, and to see _this_ man cry… Gone was all trace of the powerful, menacing figure who had appeared on the stage only an hour before; he had been replaced by a shivering wreck, the perfect image of a destroyed man. He shook as sobs ripped through him, but nonetheless remained almost silent, in the manner of someone who had given up on noisy tears because no matter how loudly he wailed, no one had ever come. Meg's heart unexpectedly went out to him.

She took the few steps necessary to stand just beside him, then hesitated, out of her depth and unsure how to continue. In a tentative voice, she queried, for lack of a better idea, "Monsieur le Fantôme?"

He lurched to his feet and whirled on her. When he loomed over her, transformed suddenly from the broken, sad man into an entity of impossible height and unending rage towering over her, Meg wanted to shrink back. Some of that courage borrowed from a fairytale was still with her, it seemed, and she managed to straighten her spine and look him in the eyes even when he began shouting.

"What are you doing here? Come to take a look at the madman, you vicious little Jezebel?" he screamed at her. "Look, then! Look your fill! It hardly matters now, does it?"

And Meg did look. She saw the ruined right half of his face, which she hadn't been able to see from her place offstage earlier. She saw the mottled, discolored skin with its purplish ridges and lumps, the way his eye and the right side of his nose both sagged slightly, not matching the other half, the places on his scalp where the skin was warped and stretched and no hair grew, and how that entire half of his face looked as if it had been rubbed raw. It was worse than she had expected, but she had seen worse things, once upon a time. She bit her tongue, willing herself not to look away. This was just a scare tactic, she thought. The Phantom, whoever he really was, was obviously a very broken man and, like a wounded animal, he was reacting by lashing out. But she wasn't going to give in to that; if nothing else, she was too proud to conform to his expectations.

Besides, now she had a question she wanted to ask.

Now that Erik stopped to look at her, the unwelcome intruder upon his solitary grief _was_ familiar. Antoinette's daughter, the little chorus girl whom he would never have even noticed if it weren't for his erstwhile connection with her mother. She carried a candle clutched in her hand, and by its light, he could see her face was pale. She was afraid, positively terrified, but she was still here, standing her ground. Why?

Before he could ponder it, she answered the unasked question herself. "Where is Christine?" she asked in a steady voice that would have been utterly convincing if her eyes hadn't been so wide.

"Gone." He turned away as he felt more tears pour down his face. "She and her Vicomte too, may he burn in hell." He didn't even care enough to be bothered when his voice cracked. "Go. Leave me!" he choked, before his burning throat prevented further speech. Oh god, she was _gone_, she had abandoned him… What little resolve to stay vertical he had scraped together upon the Giry girl's appearance dissolved, and he sank back down onto the floor. He curled in on the raw, empty place in his chest, knowing it wouldn't help but reacting instinctively to the agony nonetheless.

Meg let out an inaudible sigh. Christine was gone. She had escaped, or perhaps been set free. She almost did as she was ordered and left; what was the point of staying if Christine and her betrothed were already safe? But when the devastated Phantom before her sank to his knees and dissolved into tears once more, she knew she couldn't leave him.

She knelt down next to him and put a tentative hand on his shoulder. She could feel him quivering, and suddenly she understood. The Phantom's obsessive pursuit of Christine over the last few months, she realized, hadn't been just a fixation, or a desire to possess his protégé in all ways. He had genuinely loved her friend, and now she was gone and his heart was in ruins. Meg was unexpectedly overwhelmed by a rush of compassion for the sobbing man.

Before she allowed herself to think, she put a delicate arm around his broad shoulders and drew him into an awkward embrace, sitting there on the ground. He stiffened at her touch at first, but as she rubbed a gentle circle on his back and whispered calming nonsense, he seemed to relax against her. His crying did not cease, and in fact, Meg suspected that by now he _couldn't_ stop, even if manly pride demanded it. She thought of how hard it was to lose someone you loved and how devastated he must be to be so visibly upset, and held on all the tighter for it. Completely out of her depth though she was, she suspected she must be doing something right, because he leaned into her touch, going so far as to rest his head against her shoulder.

She wasn't sure how long they sat like that. It might have been several hours. "It will be alright," she murmured softly, after a terribly long time. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but it will be."

He looked up at her then, and she noticed quite suddenly that his eyes were vividly blue. Beautiful eyes, even bloodshot from too many tears. For a few moments, he simply stared at her, before suddenly the reality of the situation seemed to come crashing down on him, breaking through the grief he had been embroiled in. He pulled out of her embrace. His hand crept up to wipe away the tracks left by tears, then to cover the damaged side of his face.

"What are you doing here?" he asked quietly.

Meg shrugged. "I came to find Christine. I thought she might need help."

"You're very brave to have come down here," he told her, and he sounded sincere. "Braver to follow me this far alone."

She didn't _feel_ particularly brave, but she couldn't help smiling a little at the compliment. She set the candle down on the floor and settled back, leaning back against the wall, mimicking the attitude he had adopted. Eventually, the cold stone of the floor grew uncomfortable, and she drew her legs up to rest her chin on her knees, and wrapped her arms around her folded legs. For a few minutes they sat in silence, he staring into the little flickering candle flame, and Meg watching him. His left side was turned to her, with the ruined right side concealed, and as she took the opportunity to study him, she realized that despite his deformity, he was actually quite handsome. Who on earth _was_ this man? She had wondered it before- in fact, she had pondered on the mystery of O.G. for most of her childhood- but her mother had discouraged asking too many questions about him. Well, now was her opportunity.

"What is your name?" she asked abruptly.

At the girl's question, he was pulled abruptly out of another dark spiral of thoughts that all lead back to Christine. He gave the girl an incredulous stare. He could have _sworn _she had just asked his name. But that couldn't be right. No one he had had the misfortune to encounter in all his years had bothered to enquire after his name, save her mother. Sure he must have misheard her, he asked, "What?"

Her chin was propped up on her knees and she was peering at him with wide, friendly eyes that seemed so wholly free from guile he couldn't comprehend it. "I asked your name, Monsieur," she said, a tentative little smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Le Fantôme may be fitting, but hardly appropriate in this situation."

"Erik," he said. "My name is Erik, Mademoiselle."

"And I am Meg Giry," she responded.

"I know," he informed her. "Antoinette's daughter."

Her eyes narrowed in amiable surprise. "You-?"

Cutting her off before she could finish the sentence, he said, with as much _laissez faire_ as he could manage, "I knew your mother a very long time ago."

"Oh." Her brow drew together in apparent deep thought, before her expression resolved itself into one of epiphany. He wondered idly if she had any idea how easy she was to read. "Actually, that would make a lot of sense," she said reflectively.

Silence descended between them for several more minutes, and Erik was in the process of turning his thoughts back towards Christine's denial and the ring still clutched in his hand, when she intruded on his thoughts yet again.

"What will you do now?" she asked.

It was a troubling question, and one he did not want to dwell on, dammit! He wanted her to go away so that he could drown in his broken heart in peace. He wanted to curl up here and let the darkness have him. He didn't want to have to think about life after tonight, life with not even the faintest hope of Christine, because what was the point? His angel was gone, and there was nothing left for him...

"Well?" she prompted impatiently.

"I don't know," he confessed, looking away from her so she wouldn't see the tears that were gathering in his eyes again.

She seemed to guess anyway, though, because her tiny hand lighted on his shoulder.

"Maybe I can help."


	3. Chapter Three

**A/N-** A longer chapter, and earlier than I had expected! Woo-hoo!  
Also, I watched Black Swan today. I suspect that having seen that is going to make writing a few of the later chapters of this MUCH easier. (Also, did Mila Kunis' character actually exist? Can anyone answer that for me? Seriously, was she imaginary, or was she real and just everything she DID was imaginary or what?)

* * *

_Adéle was an extremely talented ballerina, it is true. The trouble with great talent, however, is that no matter how good you are, there is always someone at least equally proficient. When Adéle was twenty, another dancer joined the Opera Populaire's troupe, a German beauty named Clothilda. She was two years younger, but also a promising talent, and she had already earned herself a fine reputation in another ballet company. It was inevitable that the two would clash._

* * *

Erik looked up at her incredulously. "Help _me_?" he asked dubiously. Why should anyone want to do that? Especially _now_. He was suddenly brutally conscious of the air on the bare skin of his face. The contrast between the two of them was incredible, he thought. He the beast, the angel condemned eternally to hell, and she... Well, she was a different entity entirely, he decided, looking at her. She looked so tiny sitting there, kneeling on the floor next to him, looking at him with warm amber eyes and with her gold hair falling all around her. She was beautiful, actually. She didn't have the same haunting good looks as his Christine (oh _god_, not his after all... but no, he wouldn't think of that now; he couldn't go to pieces again) but her heart-shaped face had a kind of ephemeral sweetness about it that rendered her quite lovely indeed. Certainly not the kind of creature he would expect to show any kind of pity to him.

For some unfathomable reason, however, she seemed to believe differently. "Yes, help you," she said. "Regardless of what you've done, you obviously need someone to look after you, and I suspect you'd rather have my help than the kind of assistance you're likely to find from the others who came down to find you."

"Why, though?"

A tiny smile crossed her face. "Because you let them go," she told him, and apparently felt satisfied to let him make of that what he would, because she withdrew her hand from its resting place on his shoulder and got to her feet. "Alright, now, I'll go and see if they've stopped searching yet. You wait here." She held up a commanding finger as she said it. "I'll be back in ten minutes, no longer." She turned on her heel and walked away from him into the dark.

Erik realized with no small amount of surprise that she had left him the candle.

* * *

Meg reached the entrance to the passageway with minimal (but painful) difficulty, and an excess of silent walking which gave her plenty of time to think. She had no idea where the offer of help had come from. All she was certain of was that she felt an unexpected amount of sympathy and protectiveness for the damaged man she had left behind. He obviously needed someone, and she was powerless to say no. She had a suspicion that she had just taken on a rather larger task than she had quite intended.

Upon arriving at the entryway, she pushed the curtain back from the opening just the barest of inches and peered out. The cavern beyond was empty, and she ventured out, making sure to secure the concealing drape once again after her egress.

"Hello?" she called, and received only echoes in return. The makeshift home Erik had set up appeared to be empty.

_Erik_... She was mightily confused by him. For so many years, she had wondered who the Phantom was, and the reality was rather different than what she had imagined. She supposed, though, that she had encountered him in a rather unusual situation. Of all the things she had considered, the idea that the strange happenings around the Opera Populaire brought about by his hand over the last year could be motivated by love was certainly not one of them! If it hadn't all come to such a disastrous end, Meg supposed she might have thought it was somewhat romantic. Except, as she had said, he _had_ let Christine go in the end, so maybe it was after all...

Oh, the whole mess was such a puzzle! And Meg was quite sure she didn't have all the pieces yet. Well, she would soon sort it out, she decided. If nothing else, she wanted to understand what had motivated him to take such extremes to win her friend. He had obviously lived down here for a terribly long time, she thought, surveying the little series of rooms he inhabited. As lovely as it looked, she suspected that one wouldn't want to live here indefinitely. It seemed so lonely. _He_ seemed lonely. Was that the key to all this? A lonely soul reaching out to someone? It seemed incredible that all this trouble could stem from something so simple, but it was the only shape those puzzle pieces seemed to fit into. Meg supposed that his disfigurement must have made life terribly difficult for him, after all. She didn't think it was _that_ terrible, all things considered, but she knew from experience that people were liable to descend on the slightest imperfection and pick it to shreds, and something as unfortunate and as impossible to conceal as that... Perhaps it wasn't surprising that he had hidden away down here.

Meg suddenly realized she had left the white mask behind with Erik. Well, more than likely he wanted that back anyway, so no harm done.

Having ascertained that the way back to the opera house was clear, she was ready to return. She slipped back behind the curtain, and took a deep breath, preparing unhappily for another trek through the dark, complete with all the stubbed toes that were virtually guaranteed to go along with that.

* * *

Realistically, Erik knew she had only been gone a little while, but it felt like forever while he sat waiting for Meg to return for him and all the while doubting that she actually would. There was no possible reason for her to come back. More than likely she would just go and laugh at her narrow escape. Except, why had she left the candle?

And then there was the puzzle of his mask. After she had left, he had noticed it sitting on the stone floor right where she had been sitting. So she had had it all the time, and had never suggested he put it back on! It was inexplicable. He put it on now, though, feeling the familiar cold weight settle against his skin, perfectly sculpted so as to remain on his face without any stays. On the off-chance she did return, there was no need to disgust her more than he already had. He was very conscious of the fact that he had lost the wig that concealed the places along his scalp where no hair grew on his inflamed skin, but the mask was better than nothing at all.

The little flame was starting to burn low when he at last heard her delicate footsteps approaching. When at last she became visible in the dim light of the taper, he thought she almost seemed to glow herself. Her pale skin and hair caught the light and reflected it back brightly, making her positively angelic. She was so innocent, not tainted at all by his dark world, and again he marveled that such a person would even bother with him.

She beckoned to him. "It's all empty," she told him. "Everyone else has gone back to the surface. We can go now."

He got to his feet and picked up the candle, crossing the distance between them. In silence, they walked back down the passage to the broken mirror. She pushed it aside and poked her head out, then nodded to him and stepped through. He followed, and found himself back in the habitation he had thought was left behind for good.

The little dancer turned to face him and her expression was, for once, difficult to interpret. "By the time I was on my way down here, the fire brigade had already been sent for, so hopefully they'll have managed to put out the fire by now," she said.

"Fire?" he asked thickly. His thoughts still felt like he was swimming through syrup, everything wrapped up in Christine's image, and he was having trouble following everything Meg said to him.

She gave him a disapproving frown. "Yes, _fire_," she said emphatically, her tone scathing. "I suppose you _were_ a bit busy abducting my closest friend, but I would think someone as intelligent as you so obviously are would have been able to work out that crashing an electric chandelier onto the stage would inevitably result in a _fire_. We should consider ourselves lucky if you haven't burnt the Opera Populaire to the ground!"

Unexpectedly, shame filled him. His beloved opera house... ruined? He hadn't thought about that. Of course he hadn't! Had he thought of _anything_ the way he ought to have? Nothing had come of his pitiful dreams, and he had destroyed his one sanctuary in the process. Right then and there, Erik decided that he had to find a way to fix this. He hadn't the faintest clue how, but maybe later inspiration would come. He would make better what he had destroyed, for the sake of his fellow artists if nothing else.

Meg observed him closely as she issued her barely-veiled chastisement. As the realization of what he had truly done seemed to sink in (perhaps for the first time?), she watched his eyes fill with anguish. For a long moment, he stared at the ground hard enough to sear holes in the stone beneath his feet. Then, quite suddenly, his head came up and his shoulders went back. She wondered what was going on inside his head.

"Alright then," she said, in a somewhat gentler tone, deciding that her point had been made. "Now, assuming that the fire is, in fact, put out, I think I know somewhere where we can hide you."

"Where?" he asked.

"My mother's quarters. No one will even think to bother us there. Maman has always deeply valued her privacy, and most people are afraid even to knock on the door. The only reason I even have a key, I think, is because she wanted me to have a place to avoid the detestable Josef Buquet, lecherous worm that he was." She quirked her lips and raised an eyebrow, daring him to comment on her casual mention of his victim. He apparently chose not to take the bait, instead skating past it to a rather apparent problem.

"But Antoinette's rooms are central to the ballet dormitories. How do you propose to get there undetected?" he inquired, and she got the sense that he was testing her. Meg found herself exceptionally peeved by it. What right did he have to be pressing _her_? She was the one who was risking her neck to help the cause of all this trouble! Regardless, she was more than up to any challenge he might set her!

"As I just said, the theatre was on fire not all that long ago. More than likely, the place will be empty," she pointed out, hoping he would respond in the way she suspected he would.

"And if it is not?"

Bingo! She gave him a self-satisfied smirk. "You are not the only one who knows this opera house like the back of their hand, oh mischievous Phantom. I have lived here almost my entire life, and while I may not have explored these catacombs you so enjoy, I know the building itself as well as anyone who ever lived."

His expression was incredulous. "I highly doubt that," he said.

"At the very least I know it as well as you. I found the passage behind the mirror in Christine's dressing room, and the loose panel in the wall along the staircase to the second balcony, _and_ your little oh-so-cleverly concealed bolt-hole you use to get in and out of Box Five so cleverly. And that's just the start of it."

The eyebrow that wasn't concealed behind his mask raised in surprise and, she thought, approval.

"This opera house was my playground for most of my childhood," Meg said smugly. "Never underestimate the number of things a curious child may discover."

Erik's expression was suddenly quite difficult to read. "Indeed," he said musingly. "Alright then. Show me how well you know this place."

But Meg held up a hand. "Not so fast! The manhunt may have stopped for now, but within a day someone's sure to come back. You've had half of Paris in an uproar for months, and a chance to poke around your lair is something no one will want to pass up. At the very least, the police will come down here. Anything you want to remain unspoiled, you'd better take now."

Despite his head reeling as she talked so matter-of-factly about the whole affair and the aftereffects he hadn't even stopped to consider, Erik made his way to the little alcove he had dedicated to housing his smaller instruments. He looked over the array of cases, his little collection of friends, some pilfered from thoroughly confused orchestra members and some purchased legitimately.

On a few of these instruments, he lacked proficiency. He had never had any patience for the horn, and he was only a passable clarinetist. Still, he had felt it was important for him to understand the challenges and limitations of all the instruments in order to make his compositions better. He knew he couldn't take all of these with him, and was already mourning the loss of whomever he left behind. After a few minutes of deliberation (during which Meg's impatient foot-tapping grew increasingly obvious, much to his unexpected amusement), he reached inside and plucked three cases from the shelves.

* * *

**A/N part deux-** So, which instruments do you suppose Erik cannot possibly live without? Two of them are set in stone, but I'm perfectly willing to take suggestions for the last one! Speculate away!


	4. Chapter Four

**A Very Important A/N-** Okay, because it's going to be important later, let me just say something right now, regarding the timeline here. Antoinette brought Erik to the Opera Populaire when the pair of them were ten. Antoinette left the opera to get married when she was sixteen, and returned when she was twenty-three (at this time Meg had just turned five). So just to clear things up, that makes Antoinette and Erik now thirty-five, and Meg is seventeen. Got it? Good, because this timeline IS going to be important in future chapters. Okay. Moving on to the story...

* * *

_When Clothilda first joined the ballet company, she was given no more attention than any other ballerina, but as her talent gained notice, she began to be featured more prominently in the company. Adéle, who had spent the last four years as the star of the Opera Populaire's ballet, was completely thrown by suddenly sharing the spotlight. That much is, perhaps, understandable. Anyone would have been unsettled by such a thing. Her reaction to the new status quo, however, was entirely unacceptable by the standards of basic courtesy._

_Clothilda reported being threatened by anonymous notes left on her pillow and in her drawers. Dead rats and other equally unpleasant things mysteriously found their way into her belongings, and it is almost certain that Adéle was responsible for the terrorizing. Monsieur Benoit, it has been said, took no measures to check his protégé's wild behavior._

* * *

Antoinette Giry's quarters were small, but considerably more comfortable than the ballet dormitories just outside the door. The space was cozy, the lamps draped so as to provide a softer, more inviting light, and the room was filled with mementos and photographs. Through a door Erik caught a glimpse of a bath that, although tiny, had the advantage of being private. The room smelled strongly of the lavender oil Antoinette used to rub on her hands and he almost smiled at the thought that some things never changed.

True to her word, Meg had led him safely through a series of little-used walkways and one uncomfortably narrow crawlspace behind a false wall that even he hadn't known about. If nothing else, her claim to know the opera house as well as anyone alive certainly seemed to be true. Erik found himself quite impressed by her knowledge, and in fact her in general. Up until a few hours ago, she had hardly ever crossed his thoughts before. He had noticed her, of course, as Antoinette's daughter and Christine's little shadow, but he had never given her more than a passing acknowledgement. Quite suddenly, though, she had taken it upon herself to carve out a place for herself in the spotlight and the results were startling. He never would have guessed that beneath her innocent exterior there was such a bright young woman.

Then again, he supposed, she was very like her mother. She even bore a startling resemblance to Antoinette at that age, though heaven only knew where she had gotten that hair from! Perhaps her father had been fair... Erik shook his head, trying unsuccessfully to settle his thoughts into some kind of order. He couldn't seem to focus on anything and what scrambled thoughts he did manage to pull out were inconsequential. Maybe that was better.

Meg closed the door softly behind them and turned to look at the man she had spirited here. Goodness, he was big! He always seemed to fill up a room with the proud way he carried himself (that much she remembered vividly from the masquerade, how the entire hall seemed suddenly focused on the place where he stood and the rest of the universe might as well not have existed), but even reduced to a heartbroken wreck, his height and broad shoulders made the room feel absolutely tiny.

She noticed, quite suddenly, that he was shivering. Then it occurred to her that she was, as well. It took her a surprising amount of time to realize that they were both soaked to the bone from their separate misadventures in the lake, and several hours of sitting on a wet, freezing stone floor hadn't helped. She supposed she would have to find them some dry clothes or they would both catch their deaths.

"If you'll wait here, I'll go see if the seamstress' rooms are still intact," she said. "Maybe I can find us something dry to wear."

He nodded dumbly at her, and Meg saw again something she had noticed below: though he had done an admirable job of trying to appear calm and unfazed since he had recovered from his hysteria, it was obvious he was fraying around the edges. He was just barely keeping it together, and probably only for her benefit. She wondered if he would still be lying there in the damp and the dark, crying his heart out, if she hadn't come along and found him.

She slipped out of the room, taking care to lock the door behind her on the off-chance that someone was still inside to discover him, and made her way from the ballet dormitories at the back of the building towards the costuming department at the front, just behind the stage. As she approached the front of the theatre, the smell of smoke became stronger, stinging at her nostrils. She rounded a corner and came into full view of the stage.

Meg's heart stopped. The stage and the orchestra pit were little more than damp, ashy ruins, and most of the theatre was damaged beyond repair. The gold leaf that had covered the elegant carvings all around the balconies had peeled off or simply melted from the heat, exposing the wood beneath, all of which was blackened beyond recognition. The grand sweeping aisles of velvet-covered seats were just twisted heaps of metal now, and the great, sparkling chandelier that had poured light down from the dome like a second sun lay in a deformed ruin at the edge of the stage. It was apparent that the fire hadn't spread beyond the theatre, but the devastation here, at the seat of the Opera Populaire's magic, was so great Meg couldn't see how it could ever return to its former majesty.

All the strength she had vanished, the adrenaline that had sustained her these last few hours draining from her. She dropped to her knees on the fire-scarred wood that used to be the stage, and she numbly reached out her hand, swirling it through the ashes. She turned her hand palm-up and studied the ashes that covered her fingertips. A tear dropped onto her skin, and Meg realized with a start that she was crying.

Panic filled her, and she felt an unconquerable need to leave the scene of destruction. She scrambled back to her feet and sprinted away, back into the depths of the opera house, heart pounding painfully in a way that didn't come from exertion, but from horror.

* * *

The door flew open and Erik leapt to his feet, prepared to defend his life against whomever had come at last to make him pay for his sins, but it was only Meg. She whirled inside and slammed the door shut behind her, leaning her forehead against it and breathing heavily. He was surprised to hear that she was trying and failing to hold back a sob.

"Mademoiselle?" he asked hesitantly.

She whirled abruptly to face him, hair spinning behind her like a fan, and he saw the soot on her hands and the tears pouring down her livid face. "The theatre is ruined!" she shouted, and it was obvious that she was trying very hard not to break down sobbing. Her ash-covered hands flew to her head, clutching at her scalp. "The opera house is destroyed! This place is the only home I have known my entire life, the only home for hundreds and hundreds of people, and now it's gone, maybe forever, and _you_ did that!" Her normally gentle voice rose to a shriek as she choked on her tears. "You did this, Erik! What the hell were you thinking? I know love makes fools of us all, but why couldn't you be happy with taking her?" She drew in a shaking, sobbing breath. "Why couldn't you just leave it at that? Why did you have to go and destroy _everything_? God, I- I-"

Her emotions overwhelmed her, and she dragged her hands down from her head to cover her face, painting little streaks of ashy black against her golden hair and fair skin. She let out a bitter sob, and Erik didn't know whether to move to her side to try to comfort her or stay where he was, undeserving to dry the tears of an angel. Suddenly, though, Meg seemed to get the better of her emotions. She took several deep, hiccuping breaths, eyes squeezed shut and curling her hands into fists as she pressed her white knuckles against her lips.

Then her eyes opened and though they were still bright with tears, she was calmer. She straightened her posture, returning to her usual graceful stance, and looked him in the eye. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted," she said.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. You're right, I have done terrible things, but I don't... I c-can't... I just don't know." He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm himself as his cold, lifeless heart threatened to choke him once again. When he was sure he could speak without breaking down, he looked up to meet her eyes again. "I am sorry. But I promise you, Meg Giry, I'll find some way to fix this. The opera house is my home, too."

One corner of her lips twitched ever so slightly. "I suppose it is," she said.

Then she let out her breath in a rush, puffing out her cheeks, and her distress seemed to vanish. She was capable, businesslike Meg once more. "You should get some rest," she said, pointing to her mother's neatly-made bed. "You look exhausted."

Erik hesitated, glancing where she pointed. He didn't deserve anything as safe or as comfortable as this, not after everything he had done. "What about you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "One of us should stay awake in case someone comes looking, and you need the sleep more than I do." The look on her face was one he was so used to from her mother, and considering how like Antoinette she had already proved to be, he suspected that arguing would be useless. Very well, he would lie down at any rate. At least it would appease her.

He removed his boots and set them neatly at the foot of the bed. Then he laid himself down gingerly, immediately enveloped in that lavender smell even more strongly here. He glanced at Meg, who was busying herself with dimming the lamps, and once he had ascertained that her back was very much to him, he slipped the mask of and laid it on Antoinette's bedside table, burying the right side of his face in the soft pillow. He closed his eyes, just for a moment...

* * *

Meg couldn't help the tiny smile that crossed her lips as she threw a glance across the room at Erik. She was pretty sure he had fallen asleep from the moment he lay down. She wondered how long it had been since he had slept. The poor thing had been hard-pressed even to stand up straight, which had been at least half of her reasoning behind ordering him into bed. She moved as silently as she was able to the bed and sat carefully on the very edge next to him. It was testimony to how tired he really had been that he didn't even stir as her weight shifted the mattress.

Sleep robbed him of some of his guardedness, giving her the chance to study his features properly. He really was handsome, she noted. In fact, he was devastatingly so. The ruined right side of his face didn't change that. Had his features been regular, he could have had his pick of any woman in the world, but even as he was, _she_ certainly thought he was good-looking. Meg remembered that moment in the caverns below when he had looked up at her with those piercing blue eyes. Beautiful eyes...

The little smile widened and she brushed a lock of his sandy hair away from his forehead. Who on earth was he, this solitary man who was somehow gentle and deadly all at the same time? How on earth was she to separate Erik from the Phantom? Where did the mask end and the man begin? This look at him when he was so vulnerable was enlightening, but he was still as much a mystery as he had been her entire life.

* * *

People began filtering back into the Opera Populaire around dawn, and Antoinette Giry was the first inside. Her daughter wasn't among those who had emerged, dripping, from the catacombs. Many claimed to have seen her there and in fact, a few people had actually said she had lead the way down. Antoinette was torn between pride at her daughter's courage and anger at Meg's foolishness, and both were overruled by her fear that her only child might not have survived the disaster.

She was certain, though, that if Meg had come back up from the depths, she would make her way to the one absolutely safe haven the opera house afforded- her own rooms. Antoinette all but flew through the unnaturally silent halls to her door, trying hard not to see the destruction that had been wrought all around.

When she unlocked her door and peered inside, relief filled her, followed quickly by an equal amount of utter confusion. Meg sat on the floor next to her bed, her blonde head resting on her folded arms on the edge of the mattress, dozing. On the bed lay Erik's unmistakeable figure, obviously deeply asleep. Her breath caught sharply in her chest; she hadn't been this close to him since they were just sixteen. Oh, she had caught glimpses of him here and there since then, seen him stalking about in his mask and his cape, but she hadn't seen him _properly_ for nearly twenty years.

Once the surprise passed, Antoinette noted with amusement that the pair were wearing identical outfits; as strange a sight as the two of them were, she couldn't help but mentally compare them to matching salt and pepper pots.

At the sound of the door opening, Meg's eyes fluttered open and she glanced around sharply. Once she had seen who it was, she threw a look at Erik. Having apparently satisfied herself that he was still asleep, she raised a finger to her lips to indicate that Antoinette should be quiet and rose to her feet with all the grace that thirteen years of intensive ballet training had given her. She crossed the room to her mother and the two of them embraced in silently. They didn't need words to express their mutual relief at finding the other one alive and safe.

* * *

**A/N part deux-** No, I didn't reveal which instruments I elected for Erik to take in this chapter. What can I say? It wasn't important. It would have been just stuffing in totally random dialogue for no reason. When it becomes important in a chapter or two, I assure you that you'll find out what I went with. In the meantime, requests are still open for that third slot if you care to try and convince me one way or another for that...


	5. Chapter Five

**A/N-** Yes, I'm aware that Antoinette spilled her guts to Raoul, but I do have logic behind this so hear me out. Or... better yet, hear me out at the bottom of the chapter, so I'm not spoiling anything!

* * *

_After a few months, the attacks on Clothilda tapered off, and Adéle seems to have been content to share her limelight with the other girl. But all that changed when Monsieur Benoit retired, and a new director took charge of the Opera Populaire's ballet..._

* * *

After a long embrace, Antoinette inclined her head toward the door, indicating that they should exit the room in order to be able to speak above a whisper. The Giry women stepped out into the corridor, and Meg drew the door just to behind them. Then she turned, reluctantly, to face what she was sure was to be a disapproving glare. Instead, however, she found a look of puzzlement around her mother's eyes that she couldn't recall ever seeing there before.

"What is he doing here?" Antoinette asked gently.

Meg glanced briefly at the door behind which Erik lay sleeping. "I brought him here," she said. "I thought... It's the only place I was sure he'd be safe."

Her mother looked at her for a long moment, giving her that steely stare belonging wholly to the ballet directrice. It was a look that Meg was all too familiar with from her childhood, when Antoinette knew she had done something wrong, and wanted her to confess it herself. Antoinette Giry made no accusations; she drew confessions from guilty parties with her icy eyes.

Meg scuffed the toe of her boot uncomfortably against the stone floor and began speaking, words tumbling over each other in her haste to make her mother understand. "I went to try and save Christine, you see, but she had already gone. He let her go, and I found him instead. His heart is broken, and I couldn't just leave him down there in the dark, all alone, no matter what he's done. You should have seen him, Maman! He was just laying there on the floor... he might have died if I hadn't come along! It was the right thing to do, Maman-!"

All at once, Meg found herself tucked in her mother's arms once more. Antoinette stroked the back of her head affectionately. "Oh my brave girl," she said softly. "I always knew you had a kind heart, but I didn't realize just how kind until today." She too cast a glance at the door. "He has a way of making it very difficult to abandon him to his distress, doesn't he?" she mused.

Stepping back from Antoinette's embrace, Meg looked up at her inquisitively. "Erik said the two of you knew each other..." she said leadingly.

Antoinette didn't elaborate, too distracted by something else entirely to answer her daughter's implied question. "He told you his name?" she asked, astonished.

"I asked, he answered," Meg said.

"He really must be distraught," Antoinette murmured wonderingly.

Meg pursed her lips in frustration. "Maman, how do you know him?" she demanded.

The older woman sighed, looking down at her hands. "It is a long story, ma cherie, and not a pleasant one. It might be better if he told you that; I am sure there are things he would rather be left unspoken. Suffice it to say that I met him when we were children. He was in most terrible circumstances, and I brought him to the opera house and hid him here. He has lived here ever since."

Meg nodded slowly. "I always thought you knew more than you were saying," she said. "Why didn't you ever tell me any of this?"

"Because you were always such a curious child," Antoinette said, "And I knew if I told you even part of the story, you would realize I wasn't telling you everything and want to know the rest. As I have said... I don't think it is my story to tell. And if I refused, I knew you would go looking for the rest wherever you could find it. You were bright enough, I thought, to find your way down to the catacombs given enough time to look, and I didn't want that. I didn't want you around him, especially as a child. Erik..." She sighed, shaking her head. "He has a good heart. But he has always been a little... wild. Perhaps given the events of the past few days, you can understand my concern."

"I do understand, Maman, but... well, he's so terribly lonely. Even I can see that, and I haven't known him a day! If the two of you are friends, why is he still so alone?"

Antoinette sighed again, and took her daughter's hands between her own. "We haven't spoken in many years," she confessed. "We... we argued. The night I told him I was engaged to your father, we fought bitterly. Things were said... and then I let the opera house, and too many years had passed for any apologies by the time I returned. The silence had settled into place between us, and I didn't know how to approach him any more. He had fully become the Opera Ghost while I was gone. He had been playing little tricks on the manager for years, but after I left to marry your father, he took it a step further. You know how he has been. He would let me see him, sometimes, which was more than he gave to anyone else, but I never had the courage to speak to him again."

Meg understood then: her mother blamed herself for what had happened. She thought that if she had just tried a little harder, reached out to Erik before Christine Daaé ensnared his heart and mind, all this disaster could have been prevented. She squeezed the hands still holding her own. "It isn't your fault, Maman," she reassured her. "His actions are his own. Loneliness is an explanation, not an excuse."

She smiled sadly and glanced again at the door. Her mother was right about one thing, though: Erik did have a good heart. Meg didn't think a person could love someone that much, enough to set them free, and not have a good heart. She only hoped it could recover from this.

"What do we do?" she asked. "He can't stay here... someone's bound to notice."

Antoinette pursed her lips, thinking. "They'll be on the lookout for him, which will make smuggling him out of the city nearly impossible. But perhaps we can hide him in the city. Goodness knows he has enough money to afford it."

Meg smirked in amusement, thinking of the outrage of Monsieurs Andre and Firmin at the outrageous salary O.G. had demanded each month, and Monsieur LeFevre before them, and Monsieur Gravois before _him_... Given that practically everything Erik owned was "borrowed" from the opera house, Meg supposed that he couldn't have spent much of that. Yes, Erik was a very wealthy man indeed. It would, she guessed, make the job of secreting him away much easier.

* * *

_In his dream, Christine was wearing the wedding dress he had saved and cherished for her... no, she was wearing the robe she had worn that first night he had brought her down to his sanctuary... no, that still wasn't right, she was wearing her costume as Aminta, red rose perched tantalizingly in her luxurious curls... She held out a hand to him, beckoning him on with a shy smile that quickly turned coy, and he was powerless to stay away. He chased after her, across the stage and down through the red-velvet aisles of the theatre, which suddenly seemed much longer than they really were. Her dark eyes enthralled him as she glanced back over her shoulder, always just one step ahead no matter how quickly he ran. His fingertips brushed the ends of her hair, elation filling him at the thrill of capture, but she slipped away again, and suddenly she was leading him a light-footed chase down the marble steps and across the foyer, right out the doors of the opera house..._

_...where a jeering crowd of thousands stood waiting, and Christine stood there, draped in a scarlet cloak, laughing as she held his mask high for all to see. "Devil's child!" she cackled, whipping the mask away when he tried to reach for it. "See? Here he is, the devil's child!" And the crowd echoed back, "Devil's child! Devil's child! Devil's child! Devil's child! Devil's child! Devil's ch-"_

He lurched upright with a strangled yell, clutching at his disgusting face as taunts and jeers and cries of "Devil's child!" echoed in his waking ears. Where was he? Even with his hands covering his face, he knew he was in unfamiliar surroundings. Where was he? Hands touched his shoulder, and he jerked away, yelling incoherently at the attackers he couldn't see through his protective fingers, but then there was a voice, a gentle voice that broke through his panic.

"Shh, Erik! Erik! It's alright, you're safe. It's only me! It's just Meg."

_Meg_. The little ballerina, Christine's sweet, silent shadow... He peered through his fingers and saw her face quite near to him, filled not with disgust and horror, but concern. It was his undoing, and for the second time in just a few hours, Erik fell apart. Tears poured down his face and he tried unsuccessfully to bite back a sob. He heard her let out her breath in a little "oh" of surprise, and suddenly her arms were around him, giving him unlooked-for comfort once again.

She held him gently, and he felt her fingers running through his hair. Slowly the paralyzing terror leeched away, leaving him limp and with grief twisting in his gut, and he cried quietly into Meg's warm shoulder, too far gone to care anymore about dignity.

Antoinette watched the scene unfold quietly from the doorway. When Erik had bolted upright, her first instinct had been to go to him, but Meg had beaten her to it, shaking him out of his nightmare and comforting him in the aftermath. She watched, amazed, as Meg opened her arms unquestioningly to the terrified man before her, offering comfort and affection freely. Even more surprising was the way Erik simply melted into her embrace; she remembered how he shrank away from her when they were children, and marveled that he accepted Meg's touch so readily.

When had her daughter grown up? When had she grown from the kind but timid girl who was always following everyone else into this woman who was brave enough to descend into a tortured man's dark world of nightmares for the sake of her friend and empathetic enough to turn right around and give comfort to the stranger who had destroyed her home and her livelihood only hours before? It seemed to Antoinette that she had blinked and suddenly her daughter was a grown woman. She was sure Meg had not been this person even yesterday. Maybe it was Erik's effect- goodness knows he had made _her_ grow up quickly- or perhaps Meg had just never had her strength tested before tonight. Either way, Antoinette had never dreamed that she could raise such a girl.

Looking at the pair sitting on the bed made her uneasy. She had never known Erik to show such weakness to anyone before, and the fact that it was her daughter who finally coaxed him out of his shell like this... it made her nervous. Erik could be beautiful, but the chaos in his head could just as easily turn that beauty into destruction at the flip of a coin, and her instincts screamed at her to take her daughter and fly away from him. Somehow, though, watching the two of them in this moment, Antoinette knew that Meg wouldn't leave him. Not now. It was too late to separate them, and the thought terrified her.

Resisting the urge to interrupt the moment, she stepped back out of the room and pushed the door quietly closed behind her. She would see to her girls, especially the little ones who would most need looking after in the wake of the disaster, and perhaps by the time she returned, Erik would have calmed enough that her presence wouldn't be a cause for any later embarrassment. She doubted he wanted their twenty-year silence to end while he was crying on her daughter's shoulder.

* * *

**A/N-** First off, Antoinette was really freaked at that point. Erik had gone off his meds and she didn't know what to do. Second off, Raoul is trustworthy. For all his foppishness, he's a decent guy, and Antoinette knew that. Thirdly, she was torn between her loyalty to her protégé and her loyalty to a friend she hadn't spoken to in years, who was menacing said protégé and realistically could have killed her. She had to chose between protecting Christine and protecting Erik and in the end she decided that giving Raoul information that might save Christine's life outweighed Erik's privacy. The situation with not telling Meg is entirely different.


	6. Chapter Six

**A/N-** For anyone out here who really knows their opera, the _Manon_ I refer to briefly in this chapter is Auber's, not Puccini's. Just in case you were wondering. Which I know you probably weren't. And yes, for anyone who has seen the movie _Rigoletto_ (_not_ to be confused with the opera of the same title), I may have borrowed a thing or two for the first scene. What can I say? It's fanfic. I'm plagiarizing wildly. And no, I'm not making money from this, so you law firm blokes can just chill and set down those subpoenas!

* * *

_Arabella Poisson, who took over the ballet company after Monsieur Benoit's retirement, had no patience for dramatics. She was a harsh woman, who expected absolute obedience from her dancers and would suffer no one to steal the limelight that in her mind rightfully belonged to the singers. Though she loved the dance, she was of the opinion that opera was for music, and the ballet, though beautiful, was ultimately superfluous. Ballerinas under her charge were to be uniform in their performance, and she made it very clear that none of her dancers were to be favored. Adéle, as one might surmise, was not particularly fond of her new directrice. _

* * *

At long last, Erik's crying quieted, and moved almost abruptly out of her arms; she noticed that he kept his right hand carefully pressed over that half of his face. Meg breathed a mental sigh of relief as he regained composure. She hated to see anyone in distress, and this in particular made her feel helpless. Unlike the tears of the young ones in the ballet dormitories, Meg had no power to fix what was wrong here. There was nothing material she could do to help him, and it set her on edge. Well, she might be next to useless in the face of the broken heart of a former phantom, but she could damn well try!

"I don't suppose you'll want to talk about it," she said matter-of-factly. "But if that ever changes..."

He nodded curtly, and she noticed a change in how he held his shoulders. He carried himself a little straighter; it was a defensive posture, and Meg thought she recognized something of O.G. in the set of his jaw. She remembered seeing the same behaviors down below. She suspected he was embarrassed by his loss of control, and trying to defend himself in the only way he knew how. So, then, the porcelain wasn't his _only_ mask. He wore the mantle of the Phantom for protection, as well. That, she supposed, made a twisted sort of sense.

"You have been far kinder to me than I deserve," he said, and though his tone was stiff and formal, she was paying attention to those little nuances now, and she thought she picked up some genuine emotion behind his words.

"Perhaps," she acknowledged, "But I'd rather leave the judgment to God and get on with my life. You need someone to look after you. Who am I to turn away?"

He looked astonished. "You are a most uncommon woman, Meg," he said.

"Hardly," she scoffed, giving him a wry look.

"You think not?" he said seriously. "I doubt many would be so generous to someone who... who looks like me. Someone repulsive."

Meg was genuinely startled by his statement. Certainly his damaged face was unfortunate, but it was hardly his most important feature! "It really bothers you that much?"

His visible eyebrow quirked up and he gave her an incredulous look, apparently deciding not to respond to that.

For some undefinable reason, that rubbed her exactly the wrong way. She didn't know why it bothered her, but it did. Fine, then! If he wanted to be infuriatingly tight-lipped, she could be infuriatingly enigmatic. She might not have a seal in the shape of a skull, but she could be inscrutable if she wanted to! "I've seen grief destroy a man before," she said in a tone that she hoped came across as somewhat cool and unattached, "Eating away at him until his soul is black and buried, just an empty shell." Well, maybe not entirely unattached. Maybe just a little bit shaky, in fact. Actually, maybe this had been the worst imaginable thing to try to be enigmatic about, because all her resolve to do so had faded. She steadied herself, then went on earnestly, "I have to believe it can work in the other direction, too."

"What makes you think I have a soul to save?" he asked bitterly, staring at the floor.

And there it was again, that fraying around the edges. He was trying, she could see that, but something inside him was tearing him down. Alright then, no head-games for the sake of her pride. She touched his left hand gently. "Because of your music," she said. "I meant to say it earlier but I've been distracted. Last night was the first time I heard you sing... well, the first time I've heard you sing _properly_, anyway. You sing beautifully, Erik. And your compositions are gorgeous, too. Unusual, I'll admit, but still incredible. No one could make music like that without a beautiful soul."

Erik looked up at her sharply, half expecting to discover that he had imagined the whole thing, but there she was, looking at him earnestly with a small smile on her face. He inhaled sharply against the burning in his throat and tried to say with his eyes what he was incapable of saying aloud. A beautiful soul? Him? Hardly! Yet somehow this little dancer, the overlooked daughter of the only friend he'd ever had, seemed to believe it, and her expression was so sweetly honest that he couldn't doubt her sincerity. What she believed in her naiveté was utterly impossible, but the fact that she did believe it touched him more than he knew how to express, and so he simply tried for a smile. Her tiny hand was still resting on his, and she squeezed his fingers softly. He struggled to find the right words to express his gratitude for her well-meaning foolishness.

A light rap on the door interrupted his thoughts, and he leapt to his feet and reached automatically for the mask that had sat, unexpectedly banished from his thoughts, on the dressing table throughout their conversation. Meg withdrew her hand as the door opened and her mother bustled inside carrying a bundle of cloth, closing the door briskly behind her.

Erik's stomach automatically twisted itself in knots as he stood face-to-face with Antoinette Giry for the first time in far too many years. He couldn't help but be flooded by memories of another terrible night, the last time they had spoken to each other. Oddly, reliving an old pain seemed to ease the sting of the present one somewhat, but recalling the bitter words he had shouted at her that night certainly did not make him feel any better.

"Erik," she said, addressing him stiffly. He searched her face, trying to discern what she was thinking, but her expression was as hard and inscrutable as it had been since the day she returned to the Opera Populaire with a blonde toddler clinging to her skirt.

He inclined his head in a formal nod. "Antoinette," he said. Then he sighed. This awkward dance would do neither of them any good. "I am sorry, Antoinette," he said, locking onto her gaze and holding it until the tiniest relaxing in the set of her shoulders indicated to him that she understood. This wasn't just an apology for his recent insane behavior. This was his apology for all of it, the most effusive apology he would likely ever be capable of making, pathetic attempt though it was.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Meg watching the pair of them attentively.

Antoinette's lips twitched in what might have been a smile. "Apology accepted," she said, casting an assessing eye over him. She handed him the bundle she was carrying, which turned out to be clean clothing. "Now, you get cleaned up. Meg and I are going out for a few hours to arrange what needs to be done to get you away from here safely. I trust you can keep yourself out of trouble until we return?"

"Undoubtedly," he said. "Thank you, Antoinette."

"Think nothing of it," she said brusquely. "Would you mind terribly if we used your considerable resources to make those arrangements? I'm sure you understand that we don't actually have the funds for such an undertaking."

"I wouldn't expect anything else," he said, almost affronted by the idea that Antoinette should waste any of her small salary on him.

She gave him that almost-smile he remembered so well, the unsettling one that made him feel as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Very well then. We'll see you in a few hours," she said, taking her daughter's hand and steering her out of the room. Before she vanished outside, Meg glanced back at him and gave him a reassuring smile. Then the door clicked shut behind her, Antoinette's key turned in the lock, and he was left alone.

He shook his head wonderingly. What madness possessed these Giry women to drive them to take up his cause so readily and so repeatedly? It was a conundrum of impossible proportions.

Erik did as Antoinette had instructed. He retreated to the washroom and filled the basin with unfortunately freezing water, and set about cleaning himself up as much as he could under the circumstances. Under present circumstances, there was nothing to be done about the stubble he was sporting, so that would have to wait, but he managed well enough. When he was finished, he gratefully changed into the clean clothes Antoinette had brought. She had provided him with a new pair of trousers, a fresh white shirt, and a dark emerald vest that he thought he recognized as part of the costuming from a production of _Manon Lescaut._ That had been a beautiful production... It would have been better if Carlotta hadn't been singing Manon, he supposed, but that had been before her voice had gone south, and the rest of the cast had been marvelous. He recalled the ballet from the second act, seeing Christine dance on the stage, a vision in lavender...

He chased away the thought. No, he couldn't fall apart again. He simply couldn't. He put his mask back in its rightful place and, with a grimace, attempted to comb his hair in such a way as to hide what the mask did not cover. It wasn't a particularly successful effort, and he lamented the loss of his magnificent black wig. He would have to replace that, he supposed. He would have to do a lot of things, actually, but the prospect of actually doing them seemed monumentally difficult at the moment. One thing at a time, he supposed. And for now, he was stuck waiting for Meg and Antoinette to return.

* * *

Meg had taken the opportunity, once inside Christine's dressing-room, to change into a soft cotton dress pilfered from the wardrobe. It was vastly different from the serviceable practice clothes she was used to, and, belonging to Christine, was at least four inches too long at the hem and quite a bit too tight across the bust, but she would have to manage. It was better than tramping across the city clad in her still-damp trousers!

Her mother pushed back the mirror and stepped aside to allow Meg to proceed ahead of her, then slid the plate of glass back into its normal place. Holding the candelabra she had acquired aloft, Meg moved down the dust-filled corridor with no fear. All the nerves she had felt the first time (or, for that matter, the second time) she had descended through this route seemed to have been banished with the revelation of the Phantom's true identity. There was nothing to fear down here at all.

Antoinette quickly caught up to her. "From what I've been able to discover over the years, Erik has been depositing most of his salary in the Credít Mobíliér, but if I know him, he will have kept some on-hand close by in case of emergencies. He has always hated being caught unprepared... everything is always planned months in advance, every eventuality planned for."

"Until now," Meg said sadly. "Clearly, he had no notion that Christine would reject him."

She glanced at her mother, and noticed she had pursed her lips. "I doubt he has been thinking clearly for a long time now," she said, and sighed. "You did the right thing in helping him, Meg, but I do not know what we are to do with him now that you have."

"We keep him safe," Meg said. That much seemed utterly obvious to her. "We find him a place to live until he can leave safely."

Antoinette stopped walking and turned to face her daughter. "And what of us? What are we to do? I am worried, Meg. For the first time in many years... I do not know what to do."

Meg looked closely at her mother, and saw how very tired she looked. Keeping her silence through months of Erik's madness had clearly taken a toll, and the tragedy of yesterday was weighing heavily on her. For the first time, she realized that her mother wasn't nearly as fearless and invincible as she seemed. Strangely, that made her feel better. If her mother could be as strong and capable as she was with all that fear beneath the surface, then perhaps she could, too. Maybe she would be able to find the same kind of fortitude.

"We... we stay in the city, as well," Meg said. "We keep close to him, and we look after him and... and we do whatever we have to do to make sure that the Opera Populaire is rebuilt, and when it is, we come back. We come home. We make it better than it was before. We do whatever it takes to make this right."

Antoinette smiled and cupped her daughter's cheek in one hand. "I hope it is as simple as that," she said.

"It is as simple as that," Meg insisted. "We can't overcomplicate it or we'll never get anywhere. It's like choreography: sometimes simpler is just better."

Her mother outright laughed at that, and Meg felt a little glow of pride that she was able to take that careworn look from her mother's face, at least for a little while. If only she could do the same for Erik! Well, she had time. And with that thought, she raised her light higher and moved again into the depths of the opera house.

* * *

Erik's lair- for Meg could not describe it as anything _but_ a lair- was dark when they reached it. His hundreds of candles had burnt out, or been extinguished by the mob. There was surprisingly little evidence of the crowd that had so recently filled the subterranean space, with only a few things out of place.

Meg used her candelabra to light some of the many tapers around the room, giving it back a fraction of its previous enchanted glow, then turned to help her mother down from the ledge they had walked along to reach this place. By silent agreement, the two of them diverged, Meg staying behind in the main room to search, and Antoinette retreating into the recessed area away from the water.

As her mother's figure vanished into the depths, Meg looked around, more carefully than she had the last time she was here. There were papers everywhere, most of it sheet music filled with precisely drawn notes, but there were also drawings. Erik, it seemed, was also quite an artist. Many of his drawings, she noticed, were breathtaking sketches of Christine, so finely done they made her even more beautiful than she really was. Meg sighed. Erik really was besotted, wasn't he? She also noticed, though, that a handful of his drawings were of himself, and these were much less complimentary. The ones in which the ruined half of his face was covered were more or less technically accurate, but they lacked the obvious _feeling_ that the drawings of Christine held. However, a bare handful were sketches of himself without the mask. Meg wandered over to the little table and picked up one of these, wincing as she looked at it. The right side of his face was vividly and graphically rendered, looking far worse on paper than it did in reality; the other half seemed tacked on as an afterthought, just there for the sake of completion, and it wasn't an accurate representation at all. She felt, suddenly, as though she had been allowed a little glimpse into his head. Perhaps this was why he refused to speak earlier? Perhaps he really did see himself this way. The idea made her ache.

"Meg! I've found it!" her mother's voice rang out, startling her out of her thoughts.

Guiltily, Meg replaced the drawing and hurried to catch up with her mother.


End file.
